Department for Promotion of Industry & Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce and Industry will showcase a tableau on Startup India in this year’s Republic Day Parade at Rajpath in New Delhi. The tableau on the theme Startups: Reach for the Sky will showcase stages of the lifecycle of a startup and the all-round support provided by the Government in this journey. The tableau will depict how ideas come to life and how the innovations that emerge positively affect lives of the citizens of India.

The front of the tableau depicts a creative mind, full of ideas to solve real world problems. The Startup India Tree, in the middle, represents the different kinds of support given to startups. The staircase denotes the stages of growth – proving a concept, creating a prototype, preparing a business plan, building a team, launching into markets and eventually scaling up. The wheel at the rear depicts sectors of economy where Indian entities have driven economic growth and created employment opportunities on a large scale. The map of India represents the spread of the startup movement, steadily reaching the semi-urban and rural areas. The wheel and the map together depict the width and the depth of the Startup India movement in the country.

Startup India is a flagship initiative of the Government of India, intended to build a strong ecosystem to nurture innovation, drive sustainable economic growth and generate large scale employment opportunities. The objective of Startup India is to inspire and motivate the youth of India to follow their dreams to generate wealth and become job creators and not just job seekers.

The Startup India Action Plan, launched on 16th of January 2016, has stirred entrepreneurial spirit across the country. Under the Startup India Scheme, eligible companies can get recognized as startups by DPIIT in order to access a host of tax benefits, easier compliance, IPR fast tracking and other benefits. More than 26,000 startups from 551 districts of 28 States and 7 Union Territories have been recognized in this period. Working across IT, Industry 4.0, education, healthcare, agriculture, energy, finance, space, defence and all other sectors of economy, Indian startups have attracted substantial global investments and created more than 2,91,000 jobs.

Startup recognition enables access to tax, compliance and IPR supports to facilitate scaling and job creation. The DPIIT describes the Startup India framework enabling eligible companies to obtain startup recognition to access tax benefits, eased compliance, IPR fast-tracking and other supports intended to facilitate prototyping, market entry and scaling, and to foster innovation-driven employment across multiple economic sectors.